Sorry, I was just kidding around 
I do appreciate the general lack of disparagement in the response to my beliefs and to my replies—despite my lack of an attempt to offer unbiased/unsustainable claims. A few mild ones are slipping through, but that is to be expected. Thanks for your work moderating. I wouldn’t be any good at that.
Sheldon, you mentioned something earlier about your philosophy instructor/professor (sorry I forget exactly). If you don’t mind share, how emersed are you in philosophy?
I ask because I am curious about ancient philosophers contribution to the more recent portions of the Old Testament (the Septuagint??).
Is that the REAL god, the god roman catholics pray to?
Why limit yourself? To quote Sam Harris:
Get a billion Christians to pray for a single amputee. Get them to pray that God regrow that missing limb. This happens to salamanders every day, presumably without prayer; this is within the capacity of God. I find it interesting that people of faith only tend to pray for conditions that are self-limiting.
Or take a look at his study:
Or just go down to any major hospital. Observe the many families praying for a loved one very ill, and watch to see how many do not make it.
Thank you. I have a very simple trick. I am always aware that on the other side of my monitor is a human being just like myself, someone with a brain, pride, emotions, loved ones, and are not just an avatar.
The study I was referring was a third party study.
Background: Intercessory prayer is widely believed to influence recovery from illness, but claims of benefits are not supported by well-controlled clinical trials. Prior studies have not addressed whether prayer itself or knowledge/certainty that prayer is being provided may influence outcome. We evaluated whether (1) receiving intercessory prayer or (2) being certain of receiving intercessory prayer was associated with uncomplicated recovery after coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) surgery.
Methods: Patients at 6 US hospitals were randomly assigned to 1 of 3 groups: 604 received intercessory prayer after being informed that they may or may not receive prayer; 597 did not receive intercessory prayer also after being informed that they may or may not receive prayer; and 601 received intercessory prayer after being informed they would receive prayer. Intercessory prayer was provided for 14 days, starting the night before CABG. The primary outcome was presence of any complication within 30 days of CABG. Secondary outcomes were any major event and mortality.
Results: In the 2 groups uncertain about receiving intercessory prayer, complications occurred in 52% (315/604) of patients who received intercessory prayer versus 51% (304/597) of those who did not (relative risk 1.02, 95% CI 0.92-1.15). Complications occurred in 59% (352/601) of patients certain of receiving intercessory prayer compared with the 52% (315/604) of those uncertain of receiving intercessory prayer (relative risk 1.14, 95% CI 1.02-1.28). Major events and 30-day mortality were similar across the 3 groups.
Conclusions: Intercessory prayer itself had no effect on complication-free recovery from CABG, but certainty of receiving intercessory prayer was associated with a higher incidence of complications.
NB This is of course one study, but the results showed that intercessory prayer (in this instance) had no discernible effect. I can’t speak to other studies, and of course research funding is difficult to obtain for scientific research, and investigating supernatural causes might be seen by many serious scientists as a frivolous waste of money.
However I am unaware of any objective evidence that intercessory prayer has ever had any effect, though I have seen it claimed of course, but the facts have as yet never borne out the claims.
The most common flaws in reasoning I have found are post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacies, and obvious selection bias, where only positive results are measured, these sometimes involve sharp shooter fallacies as well, or argumentum ad ignorantiam fallacies, which are sometimes used when the claims are challenged. Oh and of course sometimes they use argumentum ad populum fallacies, especially to irrationally claim miracles have occurred.
Not me sorry, I think you have me confused with someone else. I possess a middling intellect, and a pretty mediocre formal education. Not that that matters, I think someone’s ideas beliefs and claims must stand on their own merit, and I have found too many people, especially online, are only too happy to indulge in grandiloquent claims about their education, often using it to set themselves up as an authority, but failing to see that it involves an appeal to authority fallacy.
There are many posters here far more erudite than myself on a range of subjects, especially the old testament and its provenance. Old man shouts springs to mind, and Boomer of course, but he is unwell and sadly absent at the minute.
I do not indulge in philosophy because I hold the firm position that one can not argue a god into existence. The reason is that in the past theoretical possibilities have been proven prone to failure. The best example is the search for Vulcan.
For myself it’s mind-candy. Simple imaginative exercises that usually have no relationship to reality BUT may serve useful in approaching observations in a new way, creating thesis and repeatable experiments.
For example the idea of infinity 
- yet we broach it without thinking just crossing the room.
Sorry, I had tried using the search tool, but overlooked the Search Topic box. I see it was [Nyarlathotep].
Thanks for sharing some personal background. It helps to know a little about the folks I’m corresponding with.
I’m a Civil/Geotechnical/Construction Engineer by profession, so I have a rounded education of physics/science but nothing specific, except maybe geology. I find theology and philosophy fascinating but I have no formal training.
It’s boring to sit and watch Christians whisper to themselves or pray. When I was being forced to be a Christian, I hated doing the whole prayer thing. I didn’t think it worked then nor do I think it works now.
I use to think it worked. Adamantly. Then I started to hear how it worked for everyone - all sorts of false Christians, Muslims…new agers, ANYONE.
Sorta pulled the rug out from under my feet 
Every time I prayed when I was a kid. Nothing happened. All I heard and read growing up were stories from a mythology, the Bible. I think they’re just that, stories with no substance or evidence behind them just like all of the other religions out there that have grand claims floating around.
I took a few philosophy courses in college; to satisfy a humanities requirement; otherwise I would have been stuck taking foreign language courses and that sounded like it would require a lot of work.
Who’s to say the deity is inactive? What constitutes deity activity in our age?
That’s an argumentum ad ignorantiam fallacy.
Like asking, who’s to say invisible unicorns aren’t controlling everything?
“If you can’t show it, you don’t know it.”
-Aron Ra
As to why some may get “aggravated”; it may depend on the circumstance and the individual with whom you converse, so that may be difficult to answer.
As to why Christians feel the need to defend their deity, there are numerous possible answers which once again depend on the individual and the particulars of the situation. If, for example, an Atheist presents accusations of “evil” or “immorality” or “injustice”, they might feel that mounting a defense is the “right” thing to do, just as one might defend a close friend or family member that is being slighted. Another reason may be out of the simple desire to set the record straight so that rational discourse can move forward on the topic at hand. Another reason may be their perception that the Atheist is in danger if such views should continue unchecked.
Personally speaking, when a conversation turns heated, and accusations and name-calling start to prevail, I try to ask the person throwing the mud why they feel the need to do so, and take their answer at face value. I’m often surprised by what I learn from their answers.
Hi Sceptical, and welcome to AR, I got as far as that sentence before I found myself in disagreement, only I have yet to see a rational argument presented for theistic belief. In fact I find most apologists who come here habitually use known common logical fallacies, and are entirely unaware of them and what they mean. What’s more many leave here steadfastly using them still, and after they have been pointed out and explained. As if conforming to logic is a far lesser concern than preserving their belief, and of course religious apologists have a long history of antagonism towards reason in general when it opposes faith.
Yes, here I’d have to concur, it seems almost impossible for most theists who come here to understand that I view my lack of belief in deities as no more significant than my lack of belief in anything else.
Interesting, you may be a more patient man than I. Though I fully understand having core beliefs they hold as more valuable than almost all else in their lives, suddenly submitted to harsh criticism can be too much for some, but this is a debate forum, and an atheist one at that. I don’t say this to justify anything that is said, merely as a caution, that those beliefs will inevitably be tested on their own merits, and though people are respected, beliefs will be judged on their own merits alone, and have to earn that respect based on those merits.
I don’t understand the connection between arguing things into existence using philosophy and the connection to the search for Vulcan.
How are they connected? No one used pure philosophy to argue for the existence of Vulcan–it was based on real observations of Mercury’s orbit that didn’t jive with Newton’s theory of gravitation. The anomaly in Mercury’s orbit was later explained by Einstein’s theory of general relativity (the phenomenon is known as Schwarzschild precession).
